#cdnpoli

February 12, 2017

Hello my fellow Canadians. Let’s talk election counting systems. Not because it’s Sunday night, and you need help falling asleep, but because there’s some traction starting to form around reforming our existing First Past the Post (FPTP) elections that occur in each riding across the country. While the government seems to have shelved election reform for the moment, I wonder if it is because many of us, when asked, were wary about it because we didn’t know the ramifications, and that wariness sounded like disinterest to opinion gatherers.

But there’s some rather glaring issues and downsides to FTPT, and it we can benefit greatly from a different system to determine our MPs.

Fortunately, CGP Grey has us covered with an excellent series of videos that do a great job of breaking down both the pitfalls but also the workings and the boons of three different potential replacements.

Start here with a reflection on how out of whack the FPTP system can be, with a look at the last UK parliamentary election:

Then begin watching the full series here:

It’ll take you less than an hour.

Note that I’m not talking about replacing the concept behind the House of Commons, just altering the process and tally by which each MP gets elected.

The Senate, and how we might use it to be a more beneficial second chamber, is a whole other post.

Note too that I’m not keen on a purely proportional representational system, at least not as the main chamber of parliament, for it has its own, perhaps even worse, issues and failures.

So please, view the videos, and let’s get the conversation started again about reforming our electoral process to phase out FPTP.

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Side note, there are some great footnote videos linked to in the description of the last video, also quite worthwhile checking out: